Vannevar Bush, an "engineer's engineer" and early pioneer in computer development, was President Roosevelt's science advisor during World War II. He served brilliantly in that task, and among other activities set up the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Asked by President Roosevelt to prepare a plan for the postwar deployment of science for peace (some say he "engineered" that request from Roosevelt) he published (after Roosevelt's death) Science: The Endless Frontier. In this book he advocated for a National Science Foundation and a program for funding of basic research in leading U.S. universities. A well-known and respected figure, Bush (no relation to the presidential Bush family) Bush politicked vigorously and eventually gained a watered-down version of the National Science Foundation. His curious insistence that research support avoid applied science or practical ends became firmly established, however.

The new science paradigm (which I describe in a book to be published this year by the Springer Co) contributed to a huge boom in U.S. academic research departments. An unanticipated result was the massive proliferation of disciplinary research and publication (the "publish or perish syndrome"), which might use real problems of society as a subject of inquiry, but which became largely circulated within academic "invisible colleges". Bush himself became disillusioned with the results of his initiatives by the 1960s.

Since then the main Bush thesis, that basic research will spur technical innovation and have other valuable benefits for society has been countered by events and many studies but still has strong influence on U.S. academic and Congressional funding policies. Its worst effect, the placing of a stigma on applied research and development is gradually being changed, but has had serious indirect effects in causing some of the nation's best talent to become locked in the ivory tower.

In short, this book by Bush shows both the enormous potential influence of ideas on society - but also the dangers of hubris. Zachary points out that there was already plenty of evidence in the 1940s that the "basic research leads to applications" linear thesis was wrong. In fact,19th Century German science - which created whole new subfields of chemistry in the course of searching for new synthetic pharmaceutical products, dyes, and useful inorganic compounds, had shown that the opposite to the linear basic research concept was more valid. Bush's influence imposed an unwise policy on the nation.